A pair of jeans

...from Pure Blue Japan in Tokyo, who hand-make them from denim dyed in natural indigo by a ‘Living National Treasure’ - one of the craftsmen seen as keepers of intangible Japanese cultural skills.  I was married in these jeans.

The texture of the fabric is extraordinary: uneven, lumpy in places, the threads swollen by the coating of indigo that was built up by its maker’s repeated hand-dippings.  The depth of the dye means these will take years to fade; you can see only the very beginnings in the photograph.  

Aside from the craftsmanship involved in their creation, the appeal of all the jeans I own is the same: buying them in their ‘raw’ state means that every mark they acquire is mine.  They evolve and decay like no other item of clothing, their character being revealed as the surface is slowly rubbed away from within and without by the forgotten actions of daily life.  

If you wear the same pair for six months and examine them at the end of each day, it’s impossible to see any change; it’s like watching the minute hand of a clock from far away. Then one day when the light strikes them from the right angle, you notice the first pale creases and abrasions that have been permanently worn into them, like a frown or a scar.